1970: July 4th – Casey Kasem’s syndicated weekly countdown
program, American Top 40, debuts, airing at first on just seven radio stations
during the 4th of July Holiday Weekend. It is still broadcast today with its current
host, Ryan Seacrest. Meanwhile, recordings
of Casey’s original broadcasts continue to air all over the country in
syndication.
Casey had built quite a reputation for himself as a jock on KRLA in Los Angeles ... and had one of those perfect radio voices.
The concept was simple ... let's face it, countdown shows had existed from the beginning of time ... (or at least since the days of "Your Hit Parade"!) ...
But each week Casey would countdown the 40 Biggest Hits in America as determined by Billboard Magazine, which was considered to be the industry bible.
He would throw in interesting facts and tidbits about each song and artist and, as time went on and more stations climbed on the bandwagon, feature things like "Long Distance Dedications" and more in-depth features on any given song or artist.
The first show took a little over eighteen hours to record ... an unheard of amount of time in the days before voice-tracking ... plus each record featured had to be played and recorded in its entirety to reflect "real time" when being rebroadcast. And, because they hadn't started pressing these on vinyl LPs yet (that wouldn't happen until much later in 1971), copies were distributed on 14" reel-to-reel tape that each station would have to load and monitor during the broadcast.
The plan all along was for this to be weekend programming ... and what better time to launch it than Fourth Of July Weekend, 1970! People would gather together in the backyard for barbecues, and Casey would have their somewhat-divided attention as he played down each week's 40 biggest hits.
Since the 4th of July fell on a Saturday that year, the seven stations who signed on as the original syndicators had the option to run it on Saturday or Sunday ... or, if they chose, both.
However, KDEO in El Cajon, California, a station located just outside of San Diego, decided to jump the gun and air the program on Friday Night. Thus, they became, on July 3rd, 1970, the very first radio station ANYWHERE to broadcast an edition of American Top 40.
(The other six stations ... all of whom followed the rule book and aired the program over 4th of July Weekend as planned ... were WMEX in Boston, WPGC in Washington, DC, KPGC in Henderson/Las Vegas, NV, KMEN in San Bernardino, CA, KHYT in Tucson, AZ and KPOI in Honolulu, Hawaii. Incredibly, Casey's "home station," KRLA, was NOT one of the original seven to broadcast the program!)
Because Casey had to fill three hours with 40 songs ... and songs back then only averaged about three minutes in length ... there was time to fill with local ads, commentary and a few "American Top 40 Extras." That first program consisted of four of these ... "Little Ole Man" by Bill Cosby, "Spinning Wheel" by Blood, Sweat and Tears, "Satisfaction" by The Rolling Stones and "Hello Dolly" by Louis Armstrong.
For trivia buffs, the first song broadcast on American Top 40 (at #40 that week) was "End Of The Road" by Marvin Gaye.
#9 and #8 that week were "The Wonder Of You" by Elvis Presley and "The Long And Winding Road" by The Beatles ... a rare back-to-back event of the two biggest recording acts in history. (Both were enjoying two-sided hits at the time!)
What were The Top 40 songs that week?
Well, I can tell you what they weren't ...
They were NOT The Top 40 Songs shown in Billboard Magazine for the Week Ending July 4, 1970.
Because the show was airing that 4th of July Weekend, it was decided that they should be counting down the brand NEW Top 40 that Billboard would publish on Monday for the Week Ending July 11th. (Which, of course, brings into question as to just how accurate these charts really were ... if Billboard was preparing their charts a full week in advance ... speculation abounds ... but that's fodder for another day.)
As such, people listening to the program that weekend already knew what the new #1 Song was before subscribers were receiving and reading their brand new issue of Billboard Magazine! (One of the questions most asked of AT40 at the time was why "The Love You Save" by The Jackson Five wasn't the #1 Record when they heard that first program. That's because Three Dog Night knocked them out of the #1 spot the following week with "Mama Told Me (Not To Come)"!!!)
This continued to be the practice until the weekend of May 8th, 1971, when, for the first time ... and from that point forward ... the air date and the Billboard issue date were synchronized. (Amazing!)
Of course, I don't know how many of us kids listening at home had ANY idea about Billboard's weekly Hot 100 Pop Singles Chart ... I know I didn't! I have since heard that many record stores displayed the Billboard Chart in their Record Department ... but we didn't see this here when I was growing up. We had our own WLS and WCFL surveys to follow (which is typically how the records were displayed in the racks at the time.) And stores like Woolworths and Korvettes published their OWN list of most popular 45's ... and had THOSE on display.
Of course, I don't know how many of us kids listening at home had ANY idea about Billboard's weekly Hot 100 Pop Singles Chart ... I know I didn't! I have since heard that many record stores displayed the Billboard Chart in their Record Department ... but we didn't see this here when I was growing up. We had our own WLS and WCFL surveys to follow (which is typically how the records were displayed in the racks at the time.) And stores like Woolworths and Korvettes published their OWN list of most popular 45's ... and had THOSE on display.
Also on this date, the three-day Atlanta Pop Festival
opens to a crowd of 200,000. Jimi
Hendrix performs his feedback version of “The Star Spangled Banner,” which
closed the Woodstock Music And Arts Festival last year.
What kind of impression did this festival leave on the State of Georgia???
Two days later, Georgia Governor Lester
Maddox said that he would seek legislation that would ban any and all rock
festivals in the state.
